Virginia Ahearn of Danvers got a chilling text message yesterday from her daughter Samantha, who was on an eighth-grade trip to the nation's capital.

"There was a shooting at the museum that we were just about to go to. Three people got shot and there was other people there from my school. No one from my school got shot."

At least two North Shore middle school groups, from Danvers and Swampscott, were at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., yesterday when a gunman opened fire with a rifle.

Two people were actually hit, including a security guard who died of his wounds, and the gunman, who was shot by officers. The elderly assailant, whom authorities described as a white supremacist, was hospitalized in critical condition as of last night.

Students and faculty from Holten Richmond Middle School in Danvers and Swampscott Middle School were inside the museum around 1 p.m. when the shooting happened. All students were safe, according to parents and school officials, but they had some scary moments.

Amy Sessler Powell of Swampscott said her triplets, Alex, Jacob and Scott Powell, did not have their cell phones on them at the time of the incident, but teachers gave them back so students could call parents to say they were OK.

"Two of them were not that close to it," Powell said, "but one was fairly close to the action. ... He was evacuated immediately to a safe place in the museum. ... He just said it was a room, and then (Assistant Principal Megan) Bonomolo got them out."

Both schools sent out automated Connect-Ed messages to parents notifying them of what had happened and that their kids were safe. Danvers had about 200 eighth-graders on the trip, and Swampscott had 165 plus 16 chaperones.

Holten Richmond Principal Michael Cali was among those on the Danvers school trip.

"We want to assure you the students are safe, accounted for and did not witness the incident," a statement from Danvers schools said. "They were quickly bused away from the area."

Reached by cell phone, Cynthia Tennant, a chaperone on the Swampscott trip, said most of the kids were on the second and third level of the museum, but some were on the first floor where the shootings occurred. A museum official said a couple of thousand people were inside the facility when the shooting broke out.

"Everything was handled properly," Tennant said.

The mother of a Danvers teenager said students heard several gunshots before they were evacuated from the building.

Sandy Perkins, who lives on Centre Street, said her daughter, Abigail, called her shortly after the shooting.

Abigail told her mother that some of her friends were very shaken, but all were otherwise fine.

The teens did not see where the shots were coming from before they were evacuated to buses outside the museum.

"I wasn't really worried because my daughter told me she left before I was aware of anything," Ahearn said.

Her daughter is "pretty resilient," she said. "I hope it doesn't ruin any of the kids, none of them were witnesses."

Both schools' annual trips will continue as scheduled, and students will return home tomorrow.

Racist Web site

Law enforcement officials said James Von Brunn, 88, was under investigation in the shooting, and a second official said his car was found near the museum and tested for explosives. Museum officials identified the dead guard as Stephen T. Johns, a six-year veteran of the facility. In an e-mail, director Sara Bloomfield said he "died heroically in the line of duty."

Von Brunn has a racist, anti-Semitic Web site and wrote a book titled "Kill the Best Gentiles." In 1983, he was convicted of attempting to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve Board and served more than six years in prison. Writings attributed to Von Brunn on the Internet say the Holocaust was a hoax and decry a Jewish conspiracy to "destroy the white gene pool."

The museum, which opened in 1993 and has drawn nearly 30 million visitors, houses exhibits and records relating to the Holocaust of more than a half-century ago in which more than 6 million Jews died at the hands of Nazis.

"You learn of all these hate crimes and one occurs on your way out," Swampscott mom Powell said. "It just adds a sad twist to the whole day."

Material from The Associated Press and staff writer Alan Burke was used in this report. Ethan Forman can be reached at 978-338-2673 or eforman@salemnews.com.